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Dr. Tortenkopf is making Terminators great again
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About the Project
I decided that the Space Hulk Tactics Hobby Challenge would be a great excuse to get away from edge highlighting my Death Guard and get to build something again. So here come some Terminators I have been meaning to work on for several years now. I will true-scale them. I will mod them to not be Death Wing anymore. And I will hopefully get started painting them as Howling Griffons.
Related Game: Space Hulk
Related Company: Games Workshop
Related Genre: Science Fiction
This Project is Active
A Picnic on a Space Hulk
Adaptus Astartes in Tactical Dreadnough Armor spreading a picnic blanket.A while ago I bought some of the Space Hulk Terminators of ebay and I have always been wondering what the above model was supposed to be doing. It just looked more like he was spreading a blanket, than tearing up the floor plating to me.
And why would he be tearing up the plating anyway? Isn’t he supposed to shoot the jeans stealers. Maybe he dropped his keys and they slid into a grate or something….
Well, he might not be in a dynamic combat pose, but I had another use for him in mind.
The model comes in separate parts. A series of cuts is being made to separate its torso from the kneeling leg...
...and the arm.
I used pliers and the crafting knife ot remove the picnic blanket from the arm. Here it is on its own.
The inner side of the arm looked pretty mangled though.
The arm was cleaned of with a carfting knife, and missing detail on the inside of the hand was carved, also using the crafting knife.
I glued a skull into the hand in order to both cover some of the damage and to distract from the carved areas.
I used a little bit of green stuff to rebuild the cable on the inside of the arm...
...and sculpted some ridges into it. This will be on the inside of the arm and won't be very visible.The reason I did all of this is, that two of the Terminators from the Dark Vengeance kit are duplicate sculpts. I wanted to use the duplicate Terminators legs to allow the picnic Terminator from the Space Hulk set to stand up and take part in the fighting.
This is how he ended up looking:
Some more complicated cutting
Sawing the models apart at the waist was not as straight forward for some models as it was for the test figure. Some of them have details that extend across the waist line, for which some extra care needed to be taken.
This model has a decorative cord and presumably ceremonial dagger, that extend across its waist line.
A careful cut is used to separate the daggers hilt from the model, while leaving it attached to the dagger.
The same is being done for the cord.
After these two cuts had been made, the model could be sawn apart from the back. Once the saw meets the first two knife cuts, the model comes apart leaving the details attached. Which did not quite work out for the cord though.
The sergeant has similar blade and he is wearing a tabard. I used the same process to first remove the blade handle and then make the cut at the wais.Removing the chapter markings
The Terminators I am using are from the 7th Edition Dark Vengeance starter box. And they are Dark Angels Death Wing Terminators.
So in order to turn them into another chapter I will have to at least remove all the obvious Dark Angel chapter markings. Since they will be turned into Howling Griffons, a chapter with a strong knightly, heraldic background rich in both avian and leonine imagery, I figured that all manner of swords wings and feathers are probably ok as decorations.
But the large stylized wings on the sergeants back and the angel relief on his right boot had to go. And of course the actual chapter symbols on the shoulders.
The chapter markings on the shoulderpads are being carefully shaved of with a crafting knife.
The finished right arms without the chapter markings.
This file was used to smooth out the shoulder pad after shaving of the markings.
A finished and cleaned of shoulderpad.Embiggification of the Terminators
Here is how I am currently embiggening the Terminators. I am at the time of writing not quite done with all of them. You will notice the the progress pictures have been taken with different miniatures for some of the steps. That is simply due, to me working on all of them at once, not having taken pictures for all of them, as well as a little secret I will reveal at a later point in the project.
The tools I use: Clippers, Sculpting Tool, Pincers, Paper Knife, Modeling Saw, Hand Drill, Garden Wire
I remove any molded on arms from the model with the modeling saw.
I cut the models torso from the legs, again using the saw. I found out that it works best to cut below the oval detail on the back. Also the front part of the model came loose during this step.
I make a second cut from the front of the torso, being careful not to damage the details on the models belt.
Once the two cuts join up the torso can be removed from the models legs.
I use a hand drill to drill two holes into the leg part. Matching holes are being drilled into the bottom of the torso, after its two parts have been welded together. I must have used regular super glue when putting them together the first time, which has caused them to come apart under stress.
Two pieces of garden wire are being inserted into the holes of the leg part and fixed in place using super glue.
I cut the wires down to about 5 or 6 mm in length.
I then attach the torso to the top of the wires using the matching holes in its underside. Again the parts are bonded using super glue. Care has to be taken not to make the gap too large or two small, as this is hard to fix later on. I usually aimed for making the model either eye level with the Primaris Marine or the same torso length as the test miniature.
The gap at the figures waist is now filled with a small amount of kneadatite (green stuff).
Only a small amount of kneadatite is being used at first. Just enough to stabilize the joint and keep the wires from bending. No detail is being modelled on at this stage.Testing the process and a small preview
I tested the process I had in mind on a single miniature, before I set to work on the other four.
Here are a few comparison shots after the process, in order to give you an idea of how the final product will look.
My scaled up test Terminator next to a Primaris Marine.
My scaled up test Terminator next to an identical Terminator.The scaled up Terminator is not taller than the Primaris, but reaches up to the same eye level. I find it stunning how all of a sudden it becomes apparent just how massive the Terminator armor is supposed to be.
That impression is created by the length of the torso now matching the length of the legs.
Motivation and Introduction
This introduction is going to be a bit Text heavy, please bear with me…
TLDR: Terminators look wimpy next to Primaris Marines. I will fix that.
I have always loved Terminators. I have loved their design from when I first saw them.
But I cannot say the same about the regular Space Marines Armor. Compared to the other human sculpts from the 40k universe they have always appeared stunted and awkward.
I have the luxury of coming to 40k and into the possession of a Space Marine army at a time, when the shift to the new Primaris sculpts has already happenes. In fact that is one of the reason I picked up the starter box. I just never liked the old, too short Marines.
The Primaris models are well proportioned and are exactly as tall as Space Marines are always described as being in the lore. The lore also talks about them being taller than the regular marines, but lets face it, actually the old models just were too small.
Now I have some old Space Marines and I will be true-scaling them at some point. But right now its going to be the Terminators turn. Because Terminators have a problem:
It turns out, that while a Terminators legs are alright, their torso is actually weirdly too short.
The Lord of Contagion is wearing Cataphracti Armor, which is supposed to be more bulky. But unless it has really high plateau soles, why should it make him taller?Terminators are supposed to tower over other marines. The armor should make them appear taller and far more massive. But next to Primaris Marines, that just doesn’t work anymore.
Terminators are the emperors finest!
Terminators have taken worlds without firing a single shot by teleporting in and making governments submit in awe!
Terminators shouldn’t have to be looking up to anyone!
Lets do this!
